Various chucking arrangements have been developed for clamping wafers during processing thereof in vacuum chambers such as plasma etch chambers, plasma enhanced physical vapor deposition chambers, chemical vapor deposition chambers, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition chambers, and atomic layer deposition chambers. One challenge has been the residual sticking force between the wafer and the chuck during declamping operations. Thus, there is a need for improved chuck designs and methods of declamping which address the sticking problem.